The police only overreact if you're protesting against the rich

[Kievan Rus]

What's going on in Lower Manhattan tonight is yet another police overreaction to a peaceful protest.

But seriously, stuff like this only ever happens when people are protesting against the wealthy. A few that I can name off the top of my head. Seattle WTO 1999. Democratic National Convention in LA 2000. FTAA in Miami in 2003. The Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities in 2008. The London G-20 in 2009, followed shortly therafter by the Pittsburgh G-20 later that same year and the Toronto G-20 in 2010. And it's happening yet again in Lower Manhattan on this night.

Meanwhile, when Teabaggers get together, they are free to loudly disrupt town hall meetings to support the Koch Brothers agenda, shout racist, sexist and homophobic epithets at anybody that isn't a heterosexual white male Protestant, push and shove members of Congress, and chase and assault anybody whose has the chutzpah to disagree with them; and yet the cops don't do jack shit.

Demonstrations that have no real political agenda, such as when sports fans commit acts of petty vandalism and disorderly behavior when the local team wins a championship, the cops only get involved once it gets really violent. For example, in Pittsburgh, the police only got involved with the Super Bowl XLIII riots once numerous fires had been set, cars had been flipped over, windows had been broken and other acts of vandalism were committed. They were far more violent several months later when the G-20 summit rolled into town. An even more egregious example was in Seattle, when the police did absolutely nothing when an apolitical Mardi Gras riot turned so violent that many arsons were set and a man was literally beaten to death by rioters; but they were far more involved with the WTO protests two years earlier.

Why I understand the least about it is that the individual officers themselves stand to lose their jobs and collective bargaining rights should the Koch Brothers and their useful idiots in the Tea Party get their way. Which side are you on boys, which side are you on?

[mmonk]

1. True.

Any economic protest is handled brutally. Just watch any G 20 Summit protest.

[Fool Count]

2. It is not an overreaction at all. That is a well calculated action

directed into scaring people away from participating in OWS.

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. Chant heard this evening while NYPD were making arrests: "Who are you protecting?"